Thursday, 22 March 2012

Getting Discouraged by Blogger

Is it only me, or are others out there in the blog-o-sphere getting a bit sick and tired of Blogger and how the various ‘improvements’ made to the software actually make things worse?

After a while of being away from my blogging to concentrate on other things for a while, I was set to return, but have noticed a few recent problems with the software.

Chief amongst these is the inability to subscribe to some blog posts. This means if I leave a comment on someone’s blog, I have to try to remember to revisit that blog post to see there is a response. The old way of being notified by e-mail if a follow-up comment has been subsequently added is no longer available on many blogs. Bizarrely though, this doesn’t happen on all blogs hosted by Blogger. It does happen on my own blog and I have to say this has discouraged me from posting, as my readers will also have this problem.

Does anyone know of a solution to this? If not, I will stay away for a while until it gets fixed. I never thought I would become a Facebook user, but it is so much easier to post stuff on there until Blogger gets its act together and starts solving some of its many problems.

27 comments:

I have to remember to go back and check for follow up comments. Some days I am good at remember, most I am not.

I find Blogger continually has little quirks to it that are annoying but I am not sure of an alternative at this point.

As the owner of the blog I do get an email every time a comment is made so at least I can keep up on the comments on my own blog. If I didn't I'd be lost as to new comments. That is an option you can check the box for in your preferences/blog design area.

fasthair just mentioned he fixed his inability to comment and said it was a google chrome browser prob. i know my probs previously with blogger was with corrected with settings within the google profile that blogger uses.

I noticed that if I chose embedded comments, the email subscription option shows up. Otherwise it isn't there. The most annoying problem is their mobile version. If the blog owner enables "mobile" then commenting doesn't work at all unless I first choose to show the web or full version of the page. Because of my own annoyance with this, I disabled the mobile option even though it looks better on a small screen.

I think on blogger you have a choice of their 'updated' interface, or you can continue with the old one. The old one allows for email subscriptions. I'd like to move my blog to Wordpress, but I don't want to lose the ones of readers who know me at Blogger.

I have noticed the same thing with regards to comments. Very annoying. If you visit a lot of sites it's impossible to keep track.

Amongst some photographers I follow they are put off by the captcha getting longer and harder. I was able to turn it off on mine.

The other thing I 've run into is a limit to the number of photos...I don't know if it's a blogger issue or picasa. It says I've hit my limit on the free account, which would be fine, but I've hit photo limits before that were glitches resolved by other users and not by buying an account at picasa. No matter, I have other online photo storage that I can use.

I have a wordpress account that I haven't used. Maybe it's time for a move :)

I have facebook and twitter too, but they've been mostly idle. I'm getting a little better about them - guess I'm in the "just a little bit evil" category.

Facebook is certainly easier to post to, although if you think Blogger's "improvements" are a problem, you have no idea what it's like with Facebook!I use both in a complementary way. Links to my blog posts are automatically written to my Facebook wall. And then I can supplement that with simple 1 or 2 line comments on anything else I want to prattle on about.Don't know about Wordpress, but I'm inclined to stay with what I know unless there's a significant improvement possible. Will have to check it out just the same.

One further comment - the subscription process to get follow-on comments under Wordpress is a pain in the a$$ in my experience. Might be a configurable option, but that alone would turn me off Wordpress.

Gary, you can simply request email to be sent to you to see the comments. Also, Chrome blocks out some pop ups and ad sense, and may be blocking out the e-mail pop up on your browser. Just use another. I have been to a couple of others and always have come back to Blogger for its simplicity. Besides, its a lot to ask everyone that follows you to change over. Facebook, Blogger, Google... a lot of time :/ Just a thought.

I've definitely had that problem. I really like to make sure that if I start a conversation with someone that I finish it. (Call it a Midwestern necessity) but that's just the way I am. I don't like it.

Otherwise, I don't know. I'm not good enough to give my site a very dynamic appeal. I wish there was a push to keep the feel and look and pull fresh - but it's getting stale. Every time I try gets a bit more frustrating.

I'm not ready to move yet, since Google is slowly becoming our (not so) benevolent overlord it's easy for photos and such - but there are still plenty of complaints.

I've kept my blog on the older format because I like it better but getting email respose for me is the same as you. Some I get, others I don't and it is hard trying to keep up with other's blogs for updates and such. Facebook changes to much to often and wants to much information that I don't use it much. They want to make a profile on everyone and J Hoover would have LOVED it in his time.

Gary,I, too, have noticed that sites I used to be able to subscribe to comments on, I no longer can. There seems to be a certain format that has the problem. I don't know what "improvement" has been made, but it has taken away the subscribe to comments feature. I hope folks get it worked out. It is definitely a pain to keep checking back.

Also, like Roger mentioned I'm often having to "prove I'm not a robot" three or four times before I finally get it right. Oh well.~k

Dang Gary I don't know what to tell you. I just went and visited a bunch of the blogs I follow and everyone o them had a Subscribe to button I could check for email updates. This even includes your blog. I'll check it just to see how it goes.

As for the comment on using a browser to make post I use and highly recommend using Microsoft Live Writer. It's free and works great with Blogger and Word Press. I have a Word Press blog but it's a PITA to set up and configure.

I can see that Blogger have now fixed this problem after a few weeks. Saying that though, I still have to wonder what on earth the Blogger team are playing at - it is obvious they have just crammed in a poor quality fix as the alignment of the Email follow up button is wrong and the button itself doesn't match the other buttons. This is very sloppy and combined with making such a basic error of leave off comments notification, everyone has to wonder how seriously the blogger team are taking this software. Its days must surely be numbered.

What is especially annoying is the amount of time that people spent trying to fix this problem on their own computers believing it may have been something they could fix, when all along it was a Blogger problem. From reading the comments left here on my own post about this, it is clear many of you went in search of a fix that wasn't there.

The good news is, the problems is fixed and anybody that comments on a blog (including mine)can now know when follow up comments are made.

If it wasn't for the fact that some of us have so much time and history invested in Blogger, we would probably move our blogs to other and more professional hosting services.

Of course, what is really silly is as I type this, I have realised that probably very few will read it because all of you that did leave comments could not subscribe to seeing replies as it didn’t work at the time. But for those that did make a comment and will never know that I have replied, I do thank you!

Ah... software she's a fickle one Gary. Who knows what happen. Sometimes while fixing something else they break what worked before hand. All it rakes a misplaced space or period and it all goes whacky.

Jack – I hate change as well. If something works well, then for F’s sake, leave it alone. Constantly ‘improving’ software invariably means making it too complicated and spoiling what was there. I too use FB and I agree with you – it takes hard work to understand how it works.

biker baby – Due to the problems with Blogger I experienced a few weeks ago, I couldn’t be bothered to find a work-around. I just stayed away until the people at Blogger got around to fixing it, which took a remarkably long time.

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What is this blog about?

This blog was originally started to record a five month, 21000 mile tour of the US on my Harley-Davidson. I continue to use this blog to record my own motorcycling adventures, wherever they may be, along with my thoughts and opinions about motorcycling generally.

About Me

Having devoted most of my adult life to being a ‘company man’, the transition to the next phase of my life away from the construction industry was always going to include some challenges. Planning and then making my dream trip to explore America on my Harley-Davidson proved to be the ideal vehicle for clearing my mind of old ways of thinking and being. I rode 21,475 miles, in 27 US states in four-and-a-half months.
My motorcycling trips have continued, with journeys across much of Europe, New Zealand, North Africa and Cuba.
A few years ago, I set up and now run Tour1, which takes riders on Harley-Davidson Authorised tours across Europe. See www.tour1.co.uk.
I live just north of London in the UK.

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US Tour - My Favourites Places I Went To....

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